Christians have always turned to the Sermon on the Mount for inspiration. In Life Can Begin Again, Helmut Thielicke, himself one of the great preachers of the 20th Century, comes to grips with what is often seen as a collection of lovely, but impossible ideals. Thielicke makes it clear that the Sermon on the Mount can never be understood if, even for a moment, we forget the person of the Preacher of the Sermon. For without the person and the work of Jesus Christ, the marvellous words of the Beatitudes and the injunctions that follow them are the most radical and devastating distillation of God's claims that can be conceived; they leave us in utter, hopeless dismay. Only 'in Christ' do these words of the law become the glorious gospel that promises a new life. Here is not only great preaching on some of the most urgent and sublime themes, but great tenderness and compassion too. As in so many of his works, Thielicke brings the profundities of Biblical religion alive for the modern era.
